Health food stores offer wide range of advice to breast cancer patients

Breast cancer patients shopping at health food stores for natural health products are likely to receive a variety of recommendations from store employees, new research suggests.

A Canadian study found that a total of 33 different products were recommended for breast cancer, none of which had sufficient evidence supporting their efficacy.More often than not, advice at health food stores probably does not affect patient outcomes, but sometimes it may be harmful, lead author Edward Mills, from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine in North York, Ontario, told Reuters Health. For instance, “one employee actually suggested discontinuing Tamoxifen to a patient,” he said.The findings, which are published in the August 6th issue of Breast Cancer Research, are based on a study of 34 health food stores in a major Canadian city. Research assistants visited the stores masquerading as customers and asked employees what they would recommend for their mother with breast cancer. The average cost of a natural health product recommended by store employees was about $58 (Canadian). Twenty-three (68%) employees did not inquire about the patient’s current medications before recommending a health product. Fifteen (44%) employees advised a follow-up visit with a health care professional.Only three (8.8%) employees discussed potential side effects of the natural health product with the customer. However, eight (23.5%) did discuss potential interactions with conventional drugs.Two (5.9%) employees suggested that the product recommended could potentially cure breast cancer, the investigators note.”We should be working with health food store employees to educate them, because I don’t think use of complementary medicines by cancer patients is going to go away,” Mills noted.”We have to respect patients’ decisions” if they want to try a natural health product, he added. “It’s just unfortunate that we don’t have better quality evidence for most of these products.”(Source: Breast Cancer Res 2003;5:R170-R174: Reuters Health: Anthony J. Brown, MD: August 6, 2003: Oncolink)